On Julia....

I grappled with writing this post since much of what I write on here is mainly about Julia and non private events (though Julia may disagree as she’s older).  But I know many of you have been wondering what happened to me and those of you who know what’s going on are probably wondering if I’m ok.  I’ve ignored a bunch of texts, emails and phone calls and I’m very sorry about that.  This may surprise some of you, but I hate interacting with people.  You may think I’m social and I may play a pretty good game at being so at work, but truth be told, I hate talking to you.  Nothing personal, I’m just really socially awkward and find having to exchange conversation face to face or over the phone rather aversive unless we are both drunk.  I haven’t spoken to many people about this, in fact, the only people I spoke to were in this order; my best friend, my husband, my boss/mentor/friend, my mother and heartbreakingly, my Juju.  Ultimately, I’ve decided to write this to avoid having to explain or tell you in person, to pay homage to my beautiful  Julia and to hopefully help me heal.

Unfortunately, my Christmas Day was spent having a miscarriage at 12 weeks, being rushed to the ER and having an emergency D&C (a procedure to remove the baby and all products of the pregnancy).  Worse, my poor Carl has been dealing with all of this with a fever, chills and a nasty throat infection. As I commented to Carl on our way home from this whole ordeal at 6:30 in the evening, “Well, Merry Fucking Christmas!”

I’ve officially known I had a missed miscarriage since 5 nights ago, there was no heartbeat and I was scheduled for a D&C on Tuesday due to the holiday weekend.  Knowing my luck, I kind of instinctively thought this would happen to me on Christmas but I was hoping I would last till Tuesday.  We were able to push through in the morning so that Julia could open her gifts, but shortly after, I was bleeding so much that we began rushing to the hospital.  I made it, I’m physically ok, I went under, I never bled so much in my freaking life and hopefully this is the beginning to an end and I can move on.  This is about Julia and how she handled the loss of the baby.

You see, Julia has wanted a sibling for a very long time now.  She has pestered me about it for a while.  She thinks we are the family from The Incredibles movie – I’m Elasti-girl, Carl is Mr. Incredible and she’s Dash-the fast running boy in the family.  Since she’s seen the movie, every other day or so, she makes us put our hands in together and say “Go Incredibles!” or “Super Incredible Family!” or “Super Golden Incredible Family – to the rescue!” and we all have to throw our hands up in the air.  In order to really complete this family, Julia would remind us that we needed a Violet (the daughter in The Incredibles).  At my 8 week appointment, we took Julia to break the news to her.  When she finally understood that I was having a baby, she clapped her hands together, put on my Dad’s kool-aid grin and said “I’m going to be a Je-je (the Chinese word for big sister)!”  Nearly every day afterwards, before we’d go to sleep, she would lift my shirt up and talk to the baby.  “Baby, I’m going to hold you and take care of you.  Baby, I’m going to feed you.  I’m going to be your Je-je but I won’t change your diapers because I’m too little for that and I don’t want to get poop on my hands.”   

We wanted to wait till after Christmas to tell her about the miscarriage, but after two days of her trying to lift my shirt to talk to my belly…I just couldn’t.  And so I told her.  At first, I started with telling her that the baby got very sick.  She gasped and wanted to know how and why the baby was sick.  She then said “Well, the doctor will make the baby feel better.”  I had to break it to her that the baby had died.  She immediately covered her eyes and tears began streaming out fast.  She bawled, “So I’m not going to be a big sister?”  This was probably the most heartbreaking thing I have ever had to do and it just killed me that I hurt her so much and that she was feeling this loss more than I expected.  I told her that we would try again and promised her that she would be a big sister one day.  She started asking me when did I know, when did the doctor know and did Daddy find out and does Daddy know.  When she realized that I knew “yesterday” (her idea of passage of time is all yesterday if it didn’t occur today), she seemed very offended and exclaimed, “Daddy knows, you know and the doctor knows.  But I didn’t know.”  And later into the conversation she said “I knew the baby was dead.  I thought it in school that the baby was dead yesterday.”  When I told Carl about this piece of our conversation, we were both kind of floored.  This does not seem like a 4 year olds reaction and we clearly understood then that we had a made a mistake in not telling her the night we knew. Apparently, she is quite intuitive for a just-turned-4, 4 year old.  At the end of this conversation, Julia said to me in very typical Julia fashion, “I don’t want to talk about dying.  Dying is a bad word.  I don’t want to talk about this anymore.  Why do you have sad eyes? Don’t have sad eyes, I will sing you a song” and she began singing “You Are My Sunshine”.  She stopped in the middle and said, “Mommy, I’m your golden sunshine and the baby that died will be called the golden baby.”  And that was the end of the conversation. 

We didn’t tell her that we were going to the hospital today.  As we were rushing to drop her off at my parents, she began to say, “Mommy, when we have a new baby and I’m a Je-je again…….” She rambled off some Christmasy things and I began silently crying and didn't hear what else she said.  I mumbled a “yes” and she began happily singing Christmas songs she made up.  Throughout this, I would’ve been a terrible mess if it wasn’t for Julia.  Each day she makes me smile and I feel so blessed and lucky to have her in my life. 

Please don’t tell me you are sorry or sorry for my loss.  I understand that things happen and happen for a reason and believe me when I tell you, I’m sorry enough for the both of us. I’m even sorrier for Julia’s loss but if my girl can accept her “Golden Baby” and see so brightly into the future, so can I.  I can’t be so sad anymore and no one needs to be sad for me or for us.  It’s Christmas and I’ve got my family.

Julia – you are my heart and soul.  I hope that everybody I know can know and feel the light, joy and positive energy that you bring.  Merry Christmas and I hope that 2012 will make you a Je-je again.  I love you so damn much.